


here to make the other cry

by metrolights



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Suicide Attempt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), it's not even very shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:39:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metrolights/pseuds/metrolights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You can't say that. People don't change, and definitely not men like us. Yes,” Zemo says to the sudden tightness that claims T’Challa's face, “yes, we are the same. You, the proud and noble Wakandan king, and I, the Sokovian villain.” He spits the last word, disgusted.</em>
</p><p>T'Challa and Zemo each reach closure with the help of the person they'd least expected it from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here to make the other cry

**Author's Note:**

> It's not even that shippy, honest. It's mostly introspection on T'Challa's part, and his finding how he fits in respect to Zemo.
> 
> Title from Freedom Fry's "The Wilder Mile", which influenced this.

The snow is silent beneath his feet.

T’Challa recalls vaguely that it is supposed to crunch. People have always described snow to him as hard, sharp, cold, and unforgiving; it was something that never failed to make him yearn for the warm jungles of Wakanda.

But this is different: Now T’Challa knows snow that is soft and powdery. This sanctuary is not the place for a conflict between the most powerful people on earth.

It is too soft; it is too peaceful.

The snow does not deserve to be tainted by spilt blood.

So it is unfortunate that death has already touched the small snow region. A call from its threats was what had brought them - the Americans - to this desolate, accursed region. A benign threat that, too, was forced to face death.

He is almost sorry for the five who were forced to move on. So much death in such short time. Yes, he had wanted the Winter Soldier dead - but only to defend the honor of his family and kingdom, and to lay his father’s soul to rest.

He wonders if his father is proud of him, now, as he places one foot evenly in front of the other.

T’Challa must not make a sound. He is quiet and he is careful.

He is the Black Panther, and he is stalking his prey.

Zemo will not escape. He will not destroy any more lives, not ever again.

He flexes his right hand, claws sharpened and hidden, and T’Challa realizes that all he has to do is _tear_.

The cold air bites at his cheek. A warning, an omen, perhaps. The altitude is stealing his breath, shallowing his lungs. It is difficult to concentrate on more than what is in front of him, yet the thoughts that have been accumulating in the back of his mind suddenly are able to break free.

_Is it too late to make amends?_

He thinks of Barnes and Rogers and Stark. They are in the bunker now, dealing blow after desperate blow in a futile attempt to find peace.

T’Challa knows now that it doesn't work. He had hunted Barnes and he had dreamed of his blood on his hands, but it had always left him emptier than before. It would not work for Stark. He is only making Rogers more desperate, and that in itself was dangerous.

He would go help them if he could.

But. He can not let the Sokovian leave.

T’Challa unsheathes his claws. They cut through the wind that blows across the desolate mountainside. (How easily they would cut through this pitiful man’s throat!)

He throws his helmet to the ground. Should he kill this man, he will do it as his father’s son. It is a job for both the Black Panther and for T’Challa, the son of T’Chaka.

T’Challa suddenly thinks of simply murdering the man. Zemo would never see it coming, maybe he would never feel it.

(This is his father's true killer, after all. This man deserves to die, for his crimes and his amorality.)

Zemo is gazing up at him with such wide eyes, but they hold nothing. They are as empty as his father’s as he'd faded from T’Challa’s arms. This man, this Zemo, is already dead.

And there is no use in kicking dead horse.

Zemo is talking now, anxiously. Feverishly. Like these words are his last. He speaks of lost family. There are words threading unevenly, weaving the story of a son surviving a father, unable to keep him safe. And of a wife and a child, too. But it is the father shielding the wife and child to the very end that convinces T’Challa.

_tell that to the dead_

He cannot kill this man -

 _a desperate flash of_ limbs _and a_ weapon _and a_ no _,_ _there has been too much death today_

\- T’Challa cannot let this man kill himself, either.

The gunshot is stifled by a quick reflex.

T’Challa’s armored hand is clasping the front of the firearm, refusing to let it taste bittersweet flesh, and Zemo is above him, squirming and breathing, wracking with sobs that had dried long ago and trying to wrestle away, and the snow is mixing with his hair and his spit and his despair and the cliff’s edge is still waiting for them to slip.

Zemo’s tears melt the ice of his visage.

T’Challa understands.

 

* * *

 

Rogers is the one to find T'Challa, not the other way around.

“Can you call someone?” T’Challa asks Rogers. Zemo is unconscious in the snow, knocked out by T’Challa only a minute earlier. “I have been away too long. I must return to Wakanda.”

Rogers hesitates, wiping blood from his mouth. “Quinjet,” he says shortly. “Got a phone there. We'll be back in the US in hours; the reception out here is terrible.”

T’Challa gives him a terse nod. “Fine. I can wait a few hours more.” The captain, he is sure, would give him a sympathetic look had he not been broiling over with a disturbing distress. “What do we do with this one?”

Barnes is disgusted by Zemo, that much is evident. His voice is world-weary and rough as he says, “Toss him off the cliff, for all I care.” And with that, he stalks away through the snow, limping. T’Challa is sure that it is not safe for him to be walking in the condition he's in. The snow seems to move around him. Even nature dares not touch the Winter Soldier.

“I'm sorry about him,” Rogers says. (He does not mean it.)

T’Challa shifts on his feet. “He is upset. I do not blame him.” He hesitates for only a moment. “And I offer my apologies -”

Rogers interrupts. “Thank you. Really. But now isn't the time.”

He nods. “Agreed.” T’Challa scoops Zemo up into his arms, then tosses him like a ragdoll over his shoulder. The man hangs there, useless. “The quinjet?”

Captain Rogers nods. “Yeah. We'll have to move quickly. I, uh. Don't want to run into To- _Stark_ again. He's got a way off, of course,” Rogers adds hastily. “He's smart. He's got money. He can make a call.”

T’Challa pretends that this last part is for his own benefit and not Rogers’.

 

* * *

 

Soon, they are back over the black and raging seas. He and Rogers had loaded his small pod-like aircraft into the quinjet's carrying area. It is secure there now, gleaming in the flashes of lightning that illuminate the sea.

Rogers looks up at the rumble of thunder. Barnes is flying the plane one-handed, his grip white-knuckled and his gaze hunted. Rogers is his co-pilot, offering his aid once in awhile. Barnes hardly acknowledges the captain, and T’Challa can see how it's breaking him. Both of them, actually.

Behind him, he can feel Zemo begin to stir.

Perhaps yesterday he would've been angry at the intrusion. Perhaps yesterday, had he known this was the man who killed his father, he would've knocked the smaller man straight back into the unconscious. Perhaps he would've felt disgusted with having touched him, afterwards. Perhaps he would've had to bathe his hands to rid himself of the other man's presence.

Rogers and Barnes are preoccupied with their own grief - T’Challa is tired and wants to be _done_ with grieving - and so he figures it is safe to acknowledge the strange Sokovian.

“Where am I?” Zemo asks, then stops himself after a quick observation. “No. Do not answer that. I am on the Avengers’ -” his face twists into something ugly at the word, “- jet. We are leaving Siberia, likely so that I am to stand trial or be imprisoned. Or both.”

“The latter only is more likely,” T’Challa comments, but that is all he has to say.

Zemo nods tersely at that. He straightens himself up in his chair slowly; he had been slumped over himself in his unconscious state. Zemo rubs his head gingerly, no doubt feeling the bruise T'Challa had left.

(Admittedly, he had still been upset with the man. It was not an unfair feeling, it had simply just... manifested itself in a way that was ugly.)

T’Challa, not being privy to the peculiar Rogers-Barnes relationship, figures that he will be watching Zemo for the entirety of their flight. He is fine with that. As detachedly resentful he is, he can endure the silence between himself and Zemo.

Then Zemo has to ruin it:

Where earlier he had despaired, now the seeds of victory had replanted their vengeful selves in his chest.

“Stark is not here.” Zemo is gloating.

He is practically preening, the small _win_ pushing him from wallowing in his own self-loathing and misery to basking in a minor triumph. This is his happy ending, his justice.

(No, they had not killed one another. But this Zemo can be content with. It may be worse than death.)

It is ridiculous, and T’Challa wants to tell him so. But a part of being a good king is knowing when to say and not say things, and so T’Challa bites his tongue.

“Stark is not dead,” he assures Zemo. “He will find his own way home.”

(Home _._ What a vague word.)

Zemo's twisted smile does not change. If anything, he hums to himself a quick note - a happy note - and he is quiet for the remainder of their long flight.

But something fragile between them is ruined. T’Challa knows this because he is disappointed. He had thought, perhaps, that Zemo felt remorse. That he _feels_ remorse for the people he has ruined - on such a large scale, just to inflict pain on hardly a dozen people. Wakanda is in mourning, the world is in a constant state of anxiety -

and here Helmut Zemo is, smiling to himself with satisfaction.

The name of Zemo will fall through the pages of history, but does he really want _this_ as his legacy? Death, destruction, disorder?

All this and more, for a man whose crime was seeking revenge for the death of his family.

The quinjet hits a patch of turbulence and Rogers says something, but his words fall on deaf ears as the world turns numb about T’Challa:

_a man whose crime was seeking revenge for the death of his family_

Wasn't this him, too? Hadn't he been prepared to end Barnes’s life just a few hours ago?

_That's different. You had good reason; your father needed that to move on._

No. His father would not have wanted that, T’Challa realizes.

And he looks down at the still-smiling half-corpse Zemo beside him, and he forces himself to buckle in but it's all sluggish. It takes significant, loud, urgent prompting from Rogers.

 

* * *

 

Before T’Challa can alert Wakanda to his current state, he must stay with Zemo for twenty more minutes.

The two of them are in a government building; more specifically, they are both being detained in an interrogation room. Seeing as T’Challa is royalty and Zemo is a known fugitive, Zemo is the one hand-cuffed to the desk. The room is strange and blue-tinged, with a tired, aching feeling to it.

There are guards waiting outside, but none of them want to breathe the same air as Zemo.

(Because surely they can't be _afraid_ \- not disgusted, _afraid_ \- of this broken man. This is a bag of bones, a host to the dead. T’Challa knows that he can cause no more harm; Zemo is done and gone.)

T’Challa is not happy that he is the one to stay behind with Zemo, but he understands. Barnes is in hiding; Rogers is with him.

They have waited a totally of three minutes together when Zemo says, bitter, “No more freedom.”

He'd been happy moments earlier, and this dark mood which had overcome him was almost as unbearable as the former.

Still. T’Challa knows to what Zemo is referring. “I would never let that bullet take your throat.”

The Sokovian holds back a snort. “What, do you have sympathies?” Zemo says with scorn. His face is clouded over with a storm. His hands, T’Challa notices, are shaking in his manacles. (There are no other tells.) “Going soft, Black Panther?”

“No.” And T’Challa is trying to remain as calm and as pleasant as possible, he really is. “No, you need to face justice, Helmut Zemo.”

“Killing me would've been justice enough for you.”

“It would not have been," T'Challa disagrees.

This time, Zemo well and truly snorts. “And what was that nasty business with Barnes?”

“That was irrational of me,” T’Challa says, calm. “I know that now. It will never happen again.”

He will not let Zemo get to him.

“You can't say that. People don't change, and definitely not men like us. Yes,” Zemo says to the sudden tightness that claims T’Challa's face, “yes, we are the same. You, the proud and noble Wakandan king, and I, the Sokovian _villain_.” He spits the last word, disgusted.

“We sought revenge for our families. Me, for my father and wife and child. You, for your father. But there is one difference between us: you were weak, and I was strong. In the end, I, the _villain_ ,” and it is cruel and mocking, the way he uses the word so casually, “won. It should not happen, but what do I know of the world? Perhaps it is you who are the villain, you and your precious Avengers.”

“I am not one of them,” T’Challa says, but his own throat is closing in on him. The room is suddenly far too small and Zemo far too big, and T’Challa won't let himself kick a dead horse and so he is forced to stare at it, helplessly, until it lays back down to rest.

“Not yet,” says Zemo. And then he murmurs, repeats, “Not yet.”

They fall back into silence.

Then T’Challa carefully places his hand on Zemo's free one, and he is not shocked to find that it is as cold as ice. Zemo's eyes flicker down to their hands before flicking back to T'Challa's face.

He scrutinizes the man for a second before, T’Challa realizes, he lets it stay there.

The two breathe together for a few moments, and Zemo's hand begins to feel less cold. It is nice, this quiet moment.

“I -” Zemo begins, his voice almost _strangled_ ,

when a fierce pounding hits the door.

He quickly draws back his hand, and T’Challa does the same with reluctance.

He is suddenly fully aware that he is still in the Black Panther uniform when the proper security team bursts through the doors and forcibly takes Helmut Zemo.

Perhaps, in another life, T’Challa would not have allowed them to handle Zemo so roughly.

_he isn't dangerous like this, not when what he needs is to be put back together; do not drag him apart_

But he is numb, again. He seems to be feeling this a lot, lately; it has been a trying day. It has been a day.

And he is lost for thoughts as he sees them shove Zemo's head down, his hair falling into his face like a terrible mask.

 

* * *

 

He doesn't see Zemo again for months. T’Challa has not told anyone about their encounters. They seem both private and unbelievable.

T’Challa knew himself that Zemo did it to get inside his head; however, he did not want it to be confirmed by someone else.

It is a strange and terrible thing to be told that you've made a mistake.

(Something which, he realizes as a king, he must get over soon. He is being immature.)

Without warning, his thoughts shift back to Barnes. He has forgiven the killer of his father long ago - it may not have been Barnes, but it is easier to forgive the broken Barnes than it is to forgive the splintered Zemo.

But it is something he must attempt, however futile.

This is his final good-bye to Helmut Zemo, the walking corpse. He never has to see him again after this; it is a thought that makes him feel both gloriously free and strangely sad.

He has been locked away in the glass cage that once held the Winter Soldier, and T’Challa couldn’t help but think that was excessive. The only danger Zemo posed was to himself. He was certainly vicious and dangerous, but he had fulfilled his goal. The Avengers hardly existed.

He had achieved what none opposing the Avengers before had: _victory._

T’Challa breathes in deeply at that, attempting to find some comfort in the suit that suddenly feels uncomfortable on his skin.

(He is wearing a Western-style business suit on the outside, yes, but it is the Black Panther suit beneath that grows unbearable.)

“Your Highness?”

It is a nameless-faceless guard who approaches T’Challa. T’Challa nods to him.

“We're ready for you.”

And seconds later, T’Challa finds himself standing in front of the cell holding the cleverest man in the room.

(Not that T’Challa _isn't_ clever - oh, no, quite the opposite. He must be clever as he must be king.)

The clever man has his back to T’Challa, which makes his first words empty:

“How honored I must be,” says Zemo slowly in a voice reeking of disuse, “to be visited by a king.” The words crack and fracture at the end.

T’Challa soaks in his surroundings, stalling: the room is cold and dark, the lighting is bright and low, it is all spotless, it feels uninhabited. But it's not uninhabited, it has a Zemo. The Zemo both occupies no space and all the space; you can feel him in the walls.

“Your cage says otherwise,” T’Challa says.

Zemo huffs out a dark laugh. “I have grown used to its presence. Have you?”

“I am not its prisoner.”

“I am only temporary,” Zemo responds. He turns around now, and his look is feverish. The brightness of his eyes show he will not be conquered, but the raggedness of his beard and the creases in his clothes almost make T’Challa take a step back.

Not that he would. He is the Black Panther and he _will_ be strong.

“Yes,” Zemo continues. There is something hazy about his words. “They will have me executed for my crimes. These stupid men who hate the Avengers still side with them -”

“They are not choosing a side, Zemo. You detonated a bomb at Vienna and killed my father.” T’Challa says this frankly and without preamble. It still hurts, though. “And you killed many others before and after that.”

The murderer - because that is what he _is_ \- studies the new king of Wakanda. “I am sorry that you lost your father.”

“Are you sorry that he died?” T’Challa challenges, but he knows the answer.

“Should I lie?” Zemo shrugs. “It only helped me reach an end goal. Had it not succeeded, yes, I would be sorry for bringing about his death.” He tilts his head, appears amused, fakes a twitch of his lips. (It is for show; T’Challa _knows_ these tells.) “Does it bother you?”

T’Challa shakes his head, _no._ “I expected as much.”

There is a brief pause, a rest for breath.

Then Zemo seems to sag (it is subtle), and he looks as tired as he had on the snowy cliffside. “Come closer.” At T’Challa's wary look, he adds, not wholly willingly, “Please.”

So he steps forward, cautiously, until they are only inches apart, face-to-face. Zemo is not restrained in the cage like Barnes was. He has been allowed, at least, that limited freedom.

“We are being watched,” Zemo tells T’Challa in a low voice, his face unreadable.

T’Challa swallows down his sudden fears. “I know. But you are always being watched.”

“That is… besides the point. You are here for a reason, King of Wakanda. I want to know _why_.” And Zemo is practically begging, and T’Challa almost feels sorry for him, again.

“I wanted to visit you, before you were executed.” Zemo flinches at the word; still, T’Challa continues. “I didn't want you to have to die entirely alone.”

“Why?” Zemo whispers. His wide eyes are focused on the ceiling. He cannot look down.

“Because… Because it would be unjust,” T’Challa tries, tries to form coherent sentences, “because I helped put you here. Because you did _this_ ,” this murder, this genocide, this terrible destruction, “because you were alone. I did not think you would want to die that way.”

Zemo's eyes close, and he takes a long inhale. He is shaking, and T'Challa imagines that his lungs are quivering.

“No, I suppose I don't,” the other man finally murmurs. T’Challa studies his face now, and there are no tells.

Then he opens his eyes once more - and they are still bright. They reflect the dull and hollow lights above, but they are alive in their own way. _Perhaps,_  T’Challa lets himself think, _he is not dead yet._

“I am still going to be executed tomorrow,” Zemo says, softly. “Will you be there?”

T’Challa answers, honest, “No.”

Zemo tips his head slightly in a nod. “Then know that I am thankful now,” he says. His words are heavy, laden in lead. “You have allowed me closure, and a small mercy.” He steps back from the front of the cage, foot falling strangely, reluctantly. He makes to turn around. He would leave T’Challa now. “Thank you, King of Wakanda.”

(When he says it like that - without scorn or sarcasm or abrasion - T’Challa reaches some closure, too. The suit beneath a suit does not feel as constricting.)

“Wait,” T’Challa says.

Zemo partially turns his head over his shoulder to T’Challa in acknowledgement.

“You are not a good man,” T’Challa starts, then frowns at the startled laugh that Zemo gives, “but you are one who understands. I suppose I must...” and his voice cracks and his heart is hammering in his chest, though this is barely an admission of anything, “I thank you.”

And Zemo's last words are,

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

T’Challa does not stay in the city overnight. No, he does not want to be near there when they are about to kill Zemo. The man is evil, but he is not all bad.

He is on a plane now to return to Wakanda. The king has been away for too long - it is time to clean up the mess. Rogers and Barnes are there now to tie the loose ends, but there is more. There always is.

For now, though, he can rest a while longer.

Except he doesn't, because his thoughts keep drifting to the clever man in the transparent cell.

(T’Challa is pretty sure he understands the difference between himself and Zemo, now.

Zemo had taken innocent lives for the deaths of innocents. He had made others pay for what he claimed to be the Greater Good, but was in fact the desperate clinging of a dying man.

T’Challa wanted the guilty to pay for the death of an innocent, and that was all. He'd been desperate, too, but not willing to cross the line that Zemo had over and over erased.)

He thinks he will miss Zemo on some small level. Perhaps he will recall the man in his later years, and wonder. If he does, how will he remember Zemo? With disappointment? Fondly? With hate?

No, not the last. Definitely not the last.

T’Challa wonders what might've happened if Zemo hadn't sought revenge. If they'd somehow met, T'Challa likes to think that they would've been friends. Or, as he recalls the man’s bright eyes and cold touch, maybe more than friends.

And T’Challa remembers that dreams can be dangerous, and he quickly detaches himself from it. He blinks back to reality, and forces himself to look out the plane's window.

 _It will calm you_ , he tries to convince himself. _You are on edge. Breathe, T’Challa, breathe._

(A familiar voice fades into T’Challa's mind. It is soft and harsh and clever:

_Rest, King of Wakanda. Rest._

And so he allows sleep to claim him once more.)

**Author's Note:**

> My first MCU fic in years and it's probably problematic. oops 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you thought? Kudos are appreciated as always, and comments make my day :) Thanks for reading!
> 
> (also, you can say "hi" to me on tumblr [here](http://www.itemsoflittleuse.tumblr.com) :))


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